Time Person of the Year

Person of the Year (called Man of the Year or Woman of the Year until 1999)[1] is an annual issue of the United States news magazineTime that features and profiles a person, a group, an idea, or an object that "for better or for worse... has done the most to influence the events of the year".[2]

Contents

The tradition of selecting a "Man of the Year" began in 1927, with Time editors contemplating the news makers of the years. The idea was also an attempt to remedy the editorial embarrassment earlier that year of not having aviator Charles Lindbergh on its cover following his historic trans-Atlantic flight. By the end of the year, it was decided that a cover story featuring Lindbergh as the Man of the Year would serve both purposes.[3]

Since the list began, every serving President of the United States has been a Man or Person of the Year at least once with the exceptions of Calvin Coolidge (in office at time of the first issue), Herbert Hoover (the subsequent U.S. President), and Gerald Ford. Most were named Man or Person of the Year either the year they were elected or while they were in office; the only one to be given the title before being elected is Dwight D. Eisenhower, in 1944 as Supreme Commander of the Allied Invasion Force, eight years before his election. He subsequently received the title again in 1959, while in office. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the only person to have received the title three times, first as president-elect (1932) and later as the incumbent president (1934 and 1941).

In 1999, the title was changed to Person of the Year.[4] Women who have been selected for recognition after the renaming include "The Whistleblowers" (Cynthia Cooper, Coleen Rowley, and Sherron Watkins in 2002), Melinda Gates (jointly with Bill Gates and Bono, in 2005), Angela Merkel in 2015 and "The Silence Breakers" in 2017. Prior to 1999, four women were granted the title as individuals: three as "Woman of the Year"—Wallis Simpson (1936), Queen Elizabeth II (1952), and Corazon Aquino (1986)—and one as half of the "Man and Wife of the Year", Soong Mei-ling (1937).[5] "American Women" were recognized as a group in 1975. Other classes of people recognized comprise both men and women, such as "Hungarian Freedom Fighters" (1956), "U.S. Scientists" (1960), "The Inheritors" (1966), "The Middle Americans" (1969), "The American Soldier" (2003), "You" (2006), "The Protester" (2011) represented on the cover by a woman, and "Ebola fighters" (2014). Although the title on the magazine remained "Man of The Year" for both the 1956 "Hungarian Freedom Fighter" and the 1966 "Twenty-five and Under" editions which both featured a woman standing behind a man, and "Men of the Year" on the 1960 "U.S. Scientists" edition which exclusively featured men on its cover. It was not until the 1969 edition on "The Middle Americans" did the title embrace "Man and Woman of the Year".

Despite the name, the title is not just granted to individuals. Pairs of people such as married couples and political opponents, classes of people, and inanimate objects have all been selected for the special year-end issue.

Despite the magazine's frequent statements to the contrary, the designation is often regarded as an honor, and spoken of as an award or prize, simply based on many previous selections of admirable people.[7] However, Time magazine points out that controversial figures such as Adolf Hitler (1938), Joseph Stalin (1939 and 1942), Nikita Khrushchev (1957) and Ayatollah Khomeini (1979) have also been granted the title for their impacts.[8]

As a result of the public backlash it received from the United States for naming Khomeini as Man of the Year in 1979, Time has since shied away from using figures who are controversial in the United States for commercial reasons, fearing reductions in sales or advertising revenue.[9]

Time's Person of the Year 2001, immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, was New York City mayor Rudolph Giuliani.[10] The stated rules of selection, the individual or group of individuals who have had the biggest effect on the year's news, made Osama bin Laden the more likely choice that year. The issue that declared Giuliani the Person of the Year included an article that mentioned Time's earlier decision to select the Ayatollah Khomeini and the 1999 rejection of Hitler as "Person of the Century". The article seemed to imply that Osama bin Laden was a stronger candidate than Giuliani, as Adolf Hitler was a stronger candidate than Albert Einstein. The selections were ultimately based on what the magazine describes as who they believed had a stronger influence on history and who represented either the year or the century the most. According to Time, Rudolph Giuliani was selected for symbolizing the American response to the September 11th attacks, and Albert Einstein selected for representing a century of scientific exploration and wonder.

In 1941, the fictional elephant Dumbo from the Disney movie of the same name was selected to be "Mammal of the Year", and a cover was created showing Dumbo in a formal portrait style. However, the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 pre-empted the cover. The U.S. president Franklin Delano Roosevelt was named Man of the Year for a record third time, although Dumbo's Mammal of the Year profile still appeared on the inside pages of the magazine.[12]

Film-maker Michael Moore claims that director Mel Gibson cost him the opportunity to be Person of the Year alongside Gibson in 2004. Moore's controversial political documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 became the highest-grossing documentary of all time the same year Gibson's The Passion of the Christ became a box-office success and also caused significant controversy. Moore said in an interview "I got a call right after the '04 election from an editor from Time Magazine. He said,' Time Magazine has picked you and Mel Gibson to be Time's Person of the Year to put on the cover, Right and Left, Mel and Mike. The only thing you have to do is pose for a picture with each other. And do an interview together.' I said 'OK.' They call Mel up, he agrees. They set the date and time in LA. I'm to fly there. He's flying from Australia. Something happens when he gets home... Next thing, Mel calls up and says, 'I'm not doing it. I've thought it over and it is not the right thing to do.' So they put Bush on the cover."[13]

On November 24, 2017, U.S. president Donald Trump posted on the social media network Twitter that Time editors had told him he would "probably" be named Person of the Year for a second time, conditional on an interview and photo shoot which he had refused. Time denied that they had made any such promises or conditions to Trump, who was named a runner-up.[14]

Time magazine also holds an online poll for the readers to vote for who they believe to be the Person of the Year. While many mistakenly believe the winner of the poll to be the Person of the Year, the title, as mentioned above, is decided by the editors of Time. In the first online poll held in 1998, wrestler and activist Mick Foley won with over 50% of the votes.[15][16] Foley was removed from the poll, and the title was given to Bill Clinton and Ken Starr, which led to outrage from the fans of Foley who mistakenly believed the winner of the poll would be the winner of the title. In 2006, the poll winner by a wide margin was Hugo Chávez, with 35% of the votes. The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, came in second. Time again ignored those results, not mentioning them in the announcement of the Person of the Year.[17]Time continues to annually run an online poll for the "People's Choice", but stresses the decision on whom the magazine recognizes is not made by the poll, but by the magazine's editors.[18]

Laval was first elected Prime Minister of France in 1931. Laval was popular in the American press at the time for opposing the Hoover Moratorium, a temporary freeze on World War I debt payments that was disliked in both France and the US.[19]

In 1933, Johnson was appointed director of the National Recovery Administration, tasked by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt to bring industry, labor and government together to create codes of "fair practices" and set prices.

In 1957, Khrushchev consolidated his leadership of the Soviet Union, surviving a plot to dismiss him by members of the Presidium, and leading the Soviet Union into the Space Race with the launch of Sputnik 1.

In 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 (William Anders, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell) became the first humans to travel beyond low Earth orbit, orbiting the Moon and paving the way for the first manned Moon landings in 1969.

As President of the United States, Nixon visited China in 1972, the first U.S. President to do so. Nixon later secured the SALT I pact with the Soviet Union before being re-elected in one of the largest landslide election victories in American history

Represented on the covers by Dr. Jerry Brown, the medical director at the Eternal Love Winning Africa Hospital in Monrovia, Liberia,[44][45] Dr. Kent Brantly, a physician with Samaritan's Purse and the first American to be infected in the 2014 outbreak,[45][46] Ella Watson-Stryker, a health promoter for Doctors Without Borders who is originally from the United States,[45][47] Foday Gallah, an ambulance supervisor and Ebola survivor from Monrovia, Liberia,[45][48] and Salome Karwah, a trainee nurse and counselor from Liberia whose parents died of Ebola,[45][49] as well as others mentioned in the article itself, such as Dr. Pardis Sabeti from the Broad Institute.